It's all in the Family
by Mrs. George Eads
Summary: Jordan so desperately tries to find the killer who murdered her mother years ago. But what if her little sister holds all the clues? **CHAPTER 5 added 2/20/03**
1. Once around the bend, and back again...

Title: It's All in the Family  
  
Author: Trashy  
  
Disclaimer: All the shows characters belong to Tim Kring, Allan Arkush, and Arvin Brown. The character Ashleigh Cavanaugh, is an original character created and developed by the writer of this fiction.  
  
Teaser: Jordan so desperately tries to find the killer who murdered her mother years ago. But what if her little sister holds all the clues?  
  
- - - - - - -  
  
"What are you hiding?" Jordan screamed at her father who was standing at the opposite side of the dining room table. "I need to know what happened to mom!"  
  
"It's the past Jordan! You need to leave it alone. There is nothing you can do now that will bring back your mother! Ever!" He paused. "You may find something you may not like and that will haunt you for the rest of your life!" Max Cavanaugh shouted back.  
  
"Did I interrupt something?" Ashleigh asked as she walked into the backdoor of the Cavanaugh household. Here we meet Jordan's younger and only sibling. Ashleigh, or Leigh as she likes to be called, was only a year old when their mother, Emily was murdered. She doesn't remember much, but whatever she does, she holds it close, and tries to make it from disappearing. Leigh who is 24, had long blonde hair, the same color has her father. Her eyes were a piercing green, just like their mothers. Jordan had the same color.  
  
"What are you doing home?" Jordan asked. "Why aren't you at school?"  
  
"Don't you remember?" She said cautiously, as she eyed her sister and father who looked like they were about to spit nails at each other again. "Finals are done. Now I'm back home for the summer. I still live here, don't I?" She asked turning towards her father.  
  
There was a moment of hesitation. "Of course. Of course you still do." Max stuttered. "How did you last final go?" He asked pulling out a chair for his youngest daughter.  
  
Ashleigh put down her bag on the table amid the tons of boxes, files, photos, folders and papers. She looked around at the cluttered table, then back at her sister, then over at her father. "What is going on here?" No one said a word. "Look!" She shouted. "I'm just as much apart of this family as everyone else here. You always told me that I would be involved with everything. That a family that sticks together, works together."  
  
"Don't look at me." Max said throwing up his hands. "Talk to your sister over there."  
  
Leigh turned around to face her sister. "Jordan. What's going on?" She asked, paused to pick up a file which had her mother's name written on it. "Why do you have mom's old files? Why are they out here?" She began to raise her voice.  
  
"Ashleigh." Jordan began, but couldn't even begin to piece a sentence together.  
  
"Jordan!" She shouted. "Why are mom's old files out? Why are you even looking through her case files? Did you find something? Have you found clues to mom's murderer." The University of Massachusetts at Boston students' eyes were affixed on her older sister.  
  
  
  
"Apparently, your sister thinks she found a fingerprint that belonged to your mother. Some loon at the mental hospital gave it to her, while your sister was poking around asking questions." Max seethed.  
  
"Mental Hospital?" Leigh paused. "Jordan, what were you doing there?" She asked for an answer but all she got was silence. No one spoke. "DAMNIT! I want to know why you were there. I have a right to know what is going on. Now tell me, or I'll find it out myself!" She screamed at the two people she loved most.  
  
"Ashleigh. I think you need to sit down." Max told his youngest.  
  
"Dad. I am sitting down." She pointed out.  
  
"Oh." He sighed. "Your mother, before you were born, was in a mental institution. When Jordan was five, your mother had a miscarriage. If she didn't, you have been born earlier." He paused. "It freaked her out. It freaked her out to the point where she lost it. I didn't plan on telling either of you, but Jordan just found out, so now you know."  
  
Leigh perked up. Her mother was in a mental hospital? "Until when?" She asked.  
  
"Until 1978." He added.  
  
"Wait a minute." Leigh paused. "I was born that year. What month did she leave?"  
  
"Shortly after you were born." Max said with his head down and looking at the table.  
  
"I was conceived in the middle of a mental hospital?" Leigh asked.  
  
"No. Your mother was allowed to come back home for a while. But it proved too much for her. During her stay at home, that's when you were conceived. She didn't know she was pregnant with you till a month later, while in the hospital. They let her out, two days after you were born. It was like she snapped back into the person she used to be." Max explained.  
  
"So what clues lead you to the hospital? Is the murder there? Did he follow her home when she was let out? Did he stalk her?"  
  
"We don't know. But," she paused. "When I was investigating, a murder took place there. A patient was pushed out of a window. And afterwards, after dad told me about ma, I snooped around. And this guy, who's autistic, he can't speak, gave me this half torn envelope. So I got Nigel to study it. We found a fingerprint on it. And it came back to be nobody's. A ghost print. That's when I searched mom's files. And the fingerprint matched. So I went back, and the silent patient spoke."  
  
"What did he say?" Leigh questioned her big sister.  
  
"He said he knows who killed mom." Jordan spoke softly.  
  
There was a long pause. "So now what?" Ashleigh asked.  
  
"We do nothing. That's what." Max scolded both his daughters.  
  
"No dad. You're wrong." Jordan barked. "We're going to find out who killed mom." 


	2. Regrets

Jordan walked into the pub her father owned, strided up to the bar and grabed Leigh by the arm. "Oww!" Leigh muttered outloud. "Jordan. What's wrong?" She studied her sister carefully. Jordan's eyes were red, and her cheeks were stained.  
  
Jordan shut the storage room door behind her. "The bastard set me up!" She screamed.  
  
"Keep your voice down." Leigh hushed her sister. "Who set you up?" Leigh looked her sister over and over and over again. "Jordan. Who set you up?"  
  
"Redding." Jordan paused as she paced around in the small room. "Redding set me up. He didn't kill mom! I let him go and he really killed his family. I am so stupid."  
  
Leigh held her sister. "Jordan. How could you have known? You we're just following your heart. You were just trying to do mom some justice. I can understand."  
  
"No! NO!" Jordan shouted. "Ashleigh, you don't get it! I let a murderer walk and now he's made me look like a fool."  
  
Leigh sighed. Jordan was hurting, and Leigh could feel her sisters' pain. "Look, my shift is almost done here. I'll take you home, you can rest then tomorrow you can go back to work, okay?"  
  
"I can't." Jordan said as she sat down on a wooden crate.  
  
"Of course you can. You just need to rest." Leigh reassured her.  
  
"No. I can't. I quit." Jordan spoke.  
  
"What? Why did you quit."  
  
"I goofed up. I let a murderer walk, and I've compromised everything. I gave Garrett my notice. Actually," she paused. "I told him I quit, and I walked out."  
  
"Well, I'm sure given the circumstances, Garrett will give you your job back." Leigh tried once again to reassure her sister. It wasn't helping.  
  
"No!" Jordan shouted. "No! I don't want my job back!" Jordan threw herself up from the crate she sat on and grabbed the doorknob. She looked at her sister then stormed out.  
  
Leigh sighed. She scrubbed her face with her fingers. 'What are you doing to yourself Jordan.' She said to herself. 'What are you doing?'  
  
"What was that all about?" Max asked his youngest as he walked into the storage room to fetch a box of beer.  
  
"Jordan quit her job. That guy that gave her mom's finger print conned her. He really did murder his family and he's no where to be found. Dad, she kicking herself for it and..." Ashleigh lowered her voice. "I'm afraid she'll do something horrible."  
  
"To who?" Max asked as he picked up the box.  
  
"Herself." Ashleigh said quietly. 


	3. Big Picture

10:27pm- Cavanaugh House  
  
Ashleigh sat aimlessly, staring at the ceiling, her eyes fixated on nothing. She wasn't particularly staring at something on the ceiling, she was just staring. Her mind was filled with so many thoughts. Jordan's comments lingered in her head. She thought her sister was going nuts. Was she? Ah, she didn't know. She wasn't exactly sure. Ever since she could remember, Jordan was so fixated on finding their mother's killer. Why couldn't she let sleeping dogs lie? Jordan was such a busy body, and sometimes Ashleigh really did worry about her.  
  
10:45pm  
  
Jordan sat in her SUV, staring out into the world. Out into the city. Her stomach was grumbling, begging for something to feed it. But Jordan was on a mission. She knew she was getting close to tracking down her mother's killer, but yet she felt so far away. So distant. Her eyes burned from being awake so long. Five days. What a record. She can remember the promise she made her mother that day she visited her gravesite for the first time. "I will never rest until I find out who did this to you." Jordan repeated that over and over and over again in her head. She made sure it was etched there into her brain and that it would never be erased.  
  
11:00pm- Cavanaugh House  
  
"It's open." Ashley responded to the knock on her bedroom door. She turned her head to the left when her father walked in.  
  
"You've been awfully quiet." Max paused. "Are you okay?"  
  
Ashleigh sat up as her dad sat next to her. "Not really. Jordan has gone AWOL. I can't get a hold of her, she's not a her place. She's not answering her pages or her calls on her cell. God knows what could have happened to her. I just pray that she's okay." Ashleigh looked at the wood floor and began to cry.  
  
Her father's heart was hurting for her. Jordan and Ashleigh were so close, and he was upset with Jordan for doing this to her. Not to mention to himself. "I'm sure she's alright." He put his arm around his youngest daughters shoulder and pulled her closer into a hug. "Jordan has been known to take care of herself. She's just on this kick. Jordan is going through a phase right now, which she'll get out of. Soon. Hopefully."  
  
"She's been through this phase before. And we've seen what it's done to her. But this time it's worse. She's like this robot, who doesn't listen to anyone. She's on overload and it's going to kill her if she doesn't stop." Ashleigh sighed between a sob.  
  
"Why don't you get some rest and maybe tomorrow we'll go looking for her if we haven't heard anything yet." Max said as he kissed her forehead and walked out of the room.  
  
'God Jordan.' Ashleigh thought to herself. 'What are you doing to yourself?'  
  
9:56am Monday July 22- Medical Examiner's HQ  
  
"Look Nigel," Ashleigh began. "I know you've looked at these prints over and over again, but is there something that catches you by surprise? Anything?"  
  
"Not really Ash." He spoke. "Why are you doing this any ways? I thought you didn't want apart of this. Hasn't Jordan's behavior taught you a valuable lesson?"  
  
"Call me crazy but," she trailed off. "I had this really weird dream last night. And usually my dreams aren't weird like this but..."  
  
"But what?" Nigel asked, his eyes getting wide.  
  
"I dreamt about my mother. I saw her being killed. And this wasn't something that I was imagining. I was there. I could smell the garlic and the floral scent of the floor polish in the kitchen. I could feel the breeze coming off the harbor and into our house from an open window. The strange thing is, I was one when our mother was killed. I was asleep in my room when she was killed, so how could I have seen this?"  
  
"Well, maybe you were imagining it. Your brain does alter it's state when your sleeping. And it seemed so real you had to believe it." Nigel gave insight, but she wasn't buying.  
  
"No. You don't get it. It was real. I could feel the cold hardwood floors under my feet. It was like I was there, in my present state. As the 25 year old, standing right here before you. I could feel the smoothness of the walls. I'm telling you Nigel, I saw my mother being killed."  
  
"Well, then who did it?" He asked.  
  
"That's the thing. I didn't see the killers face. All I know that it was a man." She stopped.  
  
"A man? How?"  
  
"I saw the hands. They were big and rough, like his hands were work. He used his hands a lot for work. And... and, I could smell his cologne. It was strong, but it was covering something up. Not body odor, but something else. The cologne was so strong it hurt my nose. It's like I've smelt it before, and I'm not talking about the cologne, the smell, lying underneath the cologne. I have smelt the cologne before, I'm sure if I go to Macy's I could point it out for you, but that smell. It's a strong smell. Sickening to your stomach smell."  
  
"Have you told your dad about this?" Nigel questioned.  
  
"No. No. And please don't mention it to anyone else, especially my father. He is worried enough about my sister, he doesn't need my involvement in this to worry him any farther. Promise me you won't tell anyone. Please Nigel?" Ashleigh asked.  
  
"Promise. You have my word." There was a short pause. "Now what are you going to do?"  
  
"Go back to sleep." Ashleigh said softly. Nigel cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. "So I can have this dream once again, and figure out who killed my mother." 


	4. Secrets and Lies

1:15am- Jordan's SUV  
  
Tired and famished, her eyes begin to burn from the lack of sleep. She used to crave sleep, being deprived because of what her job entailed of, she now shy's away from any slumber that her body may languish for.  
  
She thinks of renting a hotel room, but she doesn't want anyone knowing where she may be. Jordan thinks of getting a room under a different alias, maybe in a different town in Massetusets. 'Or maybe in a different state.' She thought to herself.  
  
One thing was clear. No sleep for tonight, again. She needed to stay awake, to remember, to think, to make sense, to realize. She just needed to.  
  
1:25am- Ashleigh's bedroom  
  
"I'm so glad you came today. Would you like a cup of coffee?" Ashleigh could recognize that voice anywhere. It was her mothers. Despite being a toddler when her mother was murdered, it was a voice that she would always remember. She remembers the hint of laughter in her mothers voice, everytime she spoke. The excitement, everytime she told a story. The soft, tender voice, in which she spoke to little Ashleigh as a baby.  
  
"Sure I would love a cup." The tired male's voice said. This voice wasn't familiar. It sounded strained, raspy and tired. It wasn't her fathers. His face was blurry, his voice muffled. She peered around the corner carefully, as if her mother would catch her listening in on the conversation.  
  
Emily smiled and sat down at the table across from the man. She folded her hands underneath her chin, like she always did. She was always engaged into the conversations she had with various people. Her mother was an excellent listener, so she was told.  
  
Ashleigh couldn't hear exactly what the man was saying. His voice was going in and out, like a bad connection on a cell phone. Her mother laughed a few times, and she tossed her long black hair behind her shoulders.  
  
"So how is little Emily?" The man asked. Ashleigh looked around, totally shocked.  
  
"She's doing well. She's down for her afternoon nap. Can you believe she can talk in sentences already? She's growing up to fast. Her father and I can barely keep up with what she's saying. It's truly amazing." Emily beamed as she talked about her youngest.  
  
Ashleigh sat straight up in her bed. She looked around. 'Why did he call me Emily?' She thought to herself. She laid back down, and stared at the wall. It took her hours to get back to sleep, but she was finally able to.  
  
8:57am- State Records Building  
  
"So, why are we here?" Nigel said hopping around in place.  
  
"Nigel, do you need to use the bathroom?" Ashleigh laughed.  
  
"No. We've been standing here for an hour!" He exclaimed, his British accent coming through clearly. "It's not like this the place where you get tickets to the Who concert." He griped.  
  
"Nigel, would you shut up!" Ashleigh snapped. "I want to make sure I'm the first person here, so I'm not standing in a huge line. I want to know if my name was really Emily, and if so, why my father changed it!" She looked at Nigel who was definitely hurt. "I am so sorry Nigel. It's just that, everything is happening so fast. I need to know why my father lied to me."  
  
"I understand, and don't worry. We'll get to the bottom of this, soon enough." He smiled as they heard the front doors unlock. 


	5. I'm on a mission

9:10am- State Records Building; Boston.  
  
"This is impossible." Ashleigh exclaimed. "Why are my records sealed?" She screamed at the clerk.  
  
"Miss, you're going to have to calm down." The female clerk said.  
  
"Look, my friend here is really upset. She is trying to find out about her past and all she wants is the truth." Nigel spoke. "Are you able to tell me who they were sealed by and why?"  
  
The woman typed away at the computer keys and glanced at the screen. "They were sealed in 1982, and by who it doesn't say."  
  
"1982. When in 1982?" Ashleigh asked.  
  
"May 15th." The clerk spoke softly.  
  
Ashleigh stood there with her mouth ajar. "Two days after my mother died." She paused. "Someone is trying to hide my past and cover up their tracks." She turned to the clerk, "Is there any way I can get them unsealed?"  
  
"Court order is your only way." The lady said with a half smile. Leigh nodded and stepped out of the line, Nigel standing besides her. "I need to get that court order. In order to seal up records you need a reason, like, adoption, or medical records; something like that."  
  
"Do you know how hard it is love, to get a judge to unseal those records?" Nigel boomed. "You need a justifiable reason. Where are you going to get that?"  
  
"I'll just show him my evidence." Ashleigh seethed.  
  
"You still have the box?" Nigel asked.  
  
"Yeah, they're safe in a storage warehouse. Come on." Leigh said as she grabbed Nigel by the arm.  
  
9:30am- Boston Memorial Cemetery  
  
Jordan kneeled on the moist grass that was trying to dry up from the mornings dew. Her eyes swelled with tears as she looked at the headstone that stood infront of her. "I'm so sorry ma." Jordan said fighting back the tears. "I know whoever murdered you is still out there, but my options are slowly fading." She paused. "What am I supposed to do?"  
  
"You can come back to work." A males voice said coming from behind her. "Jordan, look at yourself. You're a mess."  
  
"How did you find me Garrett?" Jordan asked as she stood up.  
  
"It's your mother's birthday. I knew you'd be here. You're here every year on this day." He sighed and turned her around. "You need to come back to work. Redding is dead, and there is nothing you can do about it. He was a sick, sick man and a compulsive liar."  
  
Jordan huffed. "He knew something!"  
  
"No Jordan, he didn't. He used you, that is what he was good at." Garrett paused. "Now, you come back to work and you'll feel much better. Besides," he paused once more, "we need you. You're the best damn ME out there in this state of Massachusetts. You're father is going nuts worrying about you. Go home and come back to work!"  
  
Jordan stared at Garrett for awhile, turned her head to look at her mother's grave marker and sighed. "Okay, but, not right now. I'll be there tomorrow morning."  
  
12 Noon- Boston Court House  
  
"I'm sorry Miss Cavanaugh, but I cannot grant permission for your records to be unsealed. You haven't proven just cause for myself to grant you this favor. I am sorry about your mother, and I know that you want to find the truth, but unfortunately, I am unable to help you in this part. If you come up with more evidence and it's sufficient, then I will grant you permission. Until then I wish you the best of luck. Case dismissed." Judge Greyson announced with the slamming of the gavel.  
  
Ashleigh hated that sound. "Perfect." She muttered underneath her breath. "Now what."  
  
"We just wait." Nigel spoke. "Or, we go back to the evidence and examine it with a fine tooth comb. But I think you should go back to school. Your break ended yesterday."  
  
Ashleigh sighed. "You're right. But there's one thing I have to do." She smiled.  
  
"And that would be?" Nigel asked.  
  
"I'm changing my name back to what it was before. I need my real identity back." Ashleigh declared with conviction. 


End file.
